The Colin McEnroe Show

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. So we did another one. This hour, the conversation winds around to America 250, Oasis, bird songs, the SAVE Act, Trump, natural lawns … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. Music Featured (in order): bite my tongue &nb...

The 98th Academy Awards were Sunday night.  KPop Demon Hunters  swept its two nominations. Guillermo del Toro’s  Frankenstein  cleaned up in the craft categories and won three awards. But the big question going into the night was what would win the big awards. Would it be  Sinners , with its record-setting 16 nominations, or the seemingly inevitable  One Battle...

Mike Pesca is one of our very favorite guests — on any number of topics . His book, Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History , is a whole series of earth-shattering, hypothetical, what-if questions (and posited answers to said earth-shattering, hypothetical, what-if questions): What if a blimp full of money had exploded over world track headquarters in 1952? What if Nixon...

The Trump administration’s messaging around the war with Iran feels reminiscent of stuff like … cowboy movies. And video games. And the manosphere. This hour, a look at the rhetoric around the war and where it’s all coming from. GUESTS: Casey Ryan Kelly:  Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincol...

From the Golden Globes, to global conflicts, to elections, prediction markets have moved into the mainstream. What happens when we can bet on anything? What are the cultural impacts of that? This hour, we take stock of the status of prediction markets, and look at what they might do to politics and polling. Plus, a look at the "Wisdom of Crowds". GUESTS: Kate Knibbs:  Senior Writer at  W...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to Anthropic, cataract surgery, the burrito vs. bowl debate,  Saturday Night Live , the general unhappiness in the U.S., plastics … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. The...

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman premiered in 1949. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. It’s been said that it’s “probably the most successful modern play ever published.” This hour, with a new Broadway revival in previews, and with Peter Jacobson playing the title role in a new production at Hartford Stage , a look at Arthur Mille...

How does reality television shape our politics and our opinions? This hour two reality TV scholars join us to discuss how reality TV helps us understand (or sometimes misunderstand) actual reality. GUESTS:  Danielle Lindemann: Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University and a Visiting Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. She is also the author of the book True St...

Do you know your neighbors? This hour, we take a look at the role of our neighbors in our lives. We explore the psychological and social benefits of neighbors, hear listener stories, and discuss the role of neighbors in times of crisis. Plus, a look at "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and how he thought about neighbors and community building. GUESTS: Julie Beck:  Staff writer at  The Atlant...

This hour we convene a roundtable of faith leaders to ask: what is their role right now? How is it changing? GUESTS: A.J. Johnson:  Pastor at the Urban Hope Refuge Church in Hartford. He is also Director for Neighborhood Organizing at the Center for Leadership and Justice, and Deputy Chaplain to the Connecticut House of Representatives Sierra Fox:  Cantor for Congregation Mishkan Israel...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to Iran, the second Iraq war, Vietnam, would you rather be a cowboy or a pirate?, The Boston Dad , Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read, D...

The Secret Agent  ( O agento secreto ) is a neo-noir political thriller written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. It’s set in Brazil in 1977, and it’s currently nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for its star, Wagner Moura. And:  Network  is a satirical comedy-drama writ...

This year’s Academy Awards will include the first-ever Oscar for Achievement in Casting. It’s the first new category in 25 years, since Best Animated Feature was added in 2001 (which inaugural award was won by  Shrek ). Casting, though, is seen as kind of an illusive, inscrutable art form. We feel like we can separate out the writing and the editing and the costuming and the direc...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to sneezing, the state of the union address,  losers and losing , consciousness, Michael Pollan, local radio, possible conflict with Iran, the  A.I. Brad Pitt fighting Tom...

This hour, we look at what rights individuals and protesters have. And we ask: are our rights changing? And what can we do about that? Plus, we take a look at what rights we have online, and what we should know about digital surveillance and privacy. GUESTS: Dan Barrett:  American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut's legal director Dahlia Lithwick:  Writes about the courts and the law...

This hour, author and film critic Alissa Wilkinson joins us to talk about Joan Didion, Hollywood, and how we make sense of our politics. GUEST:  Alissa Wilkinson: Movie critic at The New York Times . Her latest book is We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on  Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Amazon Mu...

Is Wuthering Heights “the greatest love story of all time?” Or is it a tale of hate, violence, and vengeance? Or maybe a gothic satire? This hour we look at Emily Brontë’s novel and how it was received when it was published in 1847. Plus, a look at the highest-grossing movie of the year so far — Emerald Fennell’s loosely adapted “Wuthering Heights” &m...

What would it mean if we treated rivers as alive? That's the question that nature writer Robert Macfarlane wrestles with in his latest book. What would happen if we took that aliveness seriously? How would we know what a river would want? Who would speak for it? These are questions that communities around the world are dealing with as they work to figure out how to protect rivers and the ecosystem...

Biblical scholar James Tabor says that Mary – the mother of Jesus – is “the best known, least known woman in history.” This hour, we’ll get to know Mary a little better and talk about why some people are obsessed with preserving her purity at the expense of her humanity. And, we talk with (The Reverend) Amey Victoria Adkins-Jones from Emory University about Mary mytho...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. This hour, the conversation winds around to musicians, politics, jobs, journalism, planning for the future … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. MUSIC FEATURED...

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the third series in the A Song of Ice and Fire television franchise. It is set about 90 years before Game of Thrones and almost 80 years after House of the Dragon . A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is created by Ira Parker and George R. R. Martin and based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg series of novellas by Martin. And: Hamnet is the fifth feature film written and di...

Whistles have become a protest symbol, from the streets of Minnesota to the Grammys red carpet. This hour, we look at how whistles are being used by organizers across the country to alert communities about ICE presence. Plus, we discuss ancient whistles and talk about whistleblowers, why they step forward, and the costs of doing so. GUESTS: Trevor Mitchell:  Senior Metro Reporter for " MinnPo...

Nobody likes termites. They get into the wood in our homes and can lead to infuriating and expensive repairs. What’s to like? It turns out, there’s a lot to like about termites. Scientists study how they build their mounds for clues to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems, like mitigating the effects of drought, building colonies on Mars, and creating biofuels. Plus...

On February 1, President Trump announced that The Kennedy Center would close for two years for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding” (capitalization sic ). Washington Post art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott sees this as an existential threat to the Center . And: New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman thinks everyone has been misunderstanding the Mela...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. This hour, the conversation winds around to the rule of law, the Epstein files, the economy, the Green Bay Packers, Gilmore Girls … Anything. (Seemingly) eve...